Tag: Goodreads

Mind Storm by Andrew Greene

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

The prettiest cover from the first 6 books I purchased during the book fair is already on the “read” bookshelf. It’s the second book I read this year that doesn’t have a Goodreads entry. If any of my readers here is a Goodreads Librarian, please add it – I posted two requests on Goodreads for book additions.

From what I see, the gamebook writers in some countries that aren’t Bulgaria, seem to prefer publishing their works on Google Drive as a PDF and just let them be available to anyone for free. This one is published in English here.

The photo of the cover is from an angle on purpose – to see all the shiny letters. Then each page has decoration, and the illustrations are stunning. I’m not sure why and how that happened but this is a first edition and a translation at the same time.

The story is Gibson-style cyberpunk, with some references to Gibson and other gamebooks. The gameplay felt linear – you must go through most episodes for a successful read. I’d consider it easy. The writing is good, and the story is engaging.

4/5 for the book, 5+/5 for the editing/illustration/publishing. It’s a piece of art.

How I rate books on Goodreads

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I love reading books. Writing reviews on Goodreads makes me feel accomplished and helps me remember what I’ve read. Before Goodreads, I often forgot which books I owned and ended up buying them or even reading them again.

Most of my ratings are 4s and 5s. Some are 3s. Almost no ratings are 2s and 1s. One would expect a more normal distribution of ratings but I have a filtering system, and then a rating system, and they work well.

Filtering

  • I would not buy or start a book if it’s under 3.7 unless I knew the writer, 4+ would be preferred
  • I would not complete a book if it’s bad
  • I would not write a review if I didn’t complete it

This leaves most of the 1s and 2s books out.

Rating

  • For a book to be 5, it has to be a truly enjoyable piece. It can be educational, profound, fun, page-turner, interesting – one or two of these would be enough for a 5 by me. I tend to give 5s to most books thanks to the previous 3 rules. My Goodreads profile is full of 5s.
  • 4s are good books with serious flaws, often parts of a series or by writers who like to read. Here’s one that’s far too long for the events and could use editing but is otherwise okay, and is by a great writer:
  • For a book to get a 1 or a 2, it has to trick me that it’s better and punch me with a terrible ending that makes no sense. Here’s a flagged one for propaganda:

If you have a ranking system, I would appreciate a link to the blog post where it’s described or a comment here. Thanks!

Crash Course – Matthew Reilly

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

This is a simple book and part of a series I hope to finish. It comes with promises – there will be races with fighter-jet fast homemade cars. Whatever happens in the race will be decided milliseconds before the finish line. There will be crashes, of course, with speeds that would make the F1 cars look like they don’t move.

This book will teach you nothing. Not even a grain of rice of usefulness. Not a grain of anything that could possibly happen. It’s fantastic, pure joy. 5/5

Goodreads